The Epidemiology of Representations paradigm for the enquiry of cognition-with-culture:

Two empirical approaches

Sébastien Lerique / 16 June 2016

Centre d'Analyse et de Mathématique Sociales, EHESS

Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive

CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université

Integrating Cognition and Social

Durkheim, 1915

Mauss, 1936

Giddens, 1984

Bourdieu, 1980

Kroeber, 1943

Dawkins, 1976

Boyd & Richerson, 1988

Ingold, 1999

Epidemiology of Representations

Sperber, 1996

1. Epidemiology of Representations

2. Citations in the blogosphere

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

4. Limits of the approach

1. Epidemiology of Representations

2. Citations in the blogosphere

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

4. Limits of the approach

Sperber (1996), Explaining Culture

Dawkins

meme = atom of culture

science → philosophical framework

Sperber

✓ culture is defined by such atoms

transformation ≫ replication

or, "Sperber on Dawkins"

Modern synthesis

Cognitive representations

Culture theory

Fodor,

Tooby, Cosmides

Cultural attractors

1. Epidemiology of Representations

2. Citations in the blogosphere

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

4. Limits of the approach

Citations in the blogosphere

This crisis did not develop overnight and it will not be solved overnight

Nov 13, 2008 telegraph.co.uk

Nov 15, 2008 bbc.co.uk

MemeTracker dataset (now Nifty)

This problem did not develop overnight and it will not be solved overnight

frequency

age of acquisition

#phonemes

#synonyms

polysemy

Leskovec et al., 2009

Simmons et al., 2011

orthographical neighbourhood density

Clusters 71.6k 45.7k
Quotes 310k 128k
Occurrences 8.16m 2.43m

Raw

Cleaned

Inferring source-destination links

Substitution model

Time: continuous / discrete

Source: all / majority

Past: all / last bin

Destination: all / exclude past

Time: continuous / discrete

Source: all / majority

Past: all / last bin

Destination: all / exclude past

9051 substitutions

in 1060 unique clusters

Results

POS

POS effect across all substitution models

N > V in 8/16 models

No robust insight

Results

Absolute feature values

Susceptibility to substitution

Variation upon substitution

Results

Sentence-relative feature values

Susceptibility to substitution in the sentence

Variation in the sentence upon substitution

Recap

?

?

Semantics?

Word measures

1. Epidemiology of Representations

2. Citations in the blogosphere

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

4. Limits of the approach

1

2

Cornish, Smith, Kirby (2013): Systems from Sequences: an Iterated Learning Account of the Emergence of Systematic Structure in a Non-Linguistic Task

Claidière, Kirby, Fagot (2014): Cultural evolution of systematically structured behaviour in a non-human primate

Moussaïd, Brighton, Gaissmaier (2015): The amplification of risk in experimental diffusion chains

Gistr

Launch

  • 57 subjects
  • ages 18-61
  • 22 women, 35 men
  • 50 trees filled
  • 22,4% spam
  • 3,5% badly positioned

2745 sentences

2034 good sentences

Generated trees

Analysis tools

Immediately after I become president I will confront this economic challenge head-on by taking all necessary steps

immediately after I become a president I will confront this economic challenge

Immediately after I become president, I will tackle this economic challenge head-on by taking all the necessary steps

This crisis did not develop overnight and it will not be solved overnight

the crisis did not developed overnight, and it will be not solved overnight

original

This, crisis, did, not, develop, overnight, and, it, will, not, be, solved, overnight

this, crisis, did, not, develop, overnight, and, it, will, not, be, solved, overnight

this, crisis, did, not, develop, overnight, and, it, will, not, be, solved, overnight

crisi, develop, overnight, solv, overnight

tokenize

lowercase & length > 2

stopwords

stem

The crisis didn't happen today won't be solved by midnight.

crisi, happen, today, solv, midnight

d = 0,6

Distance between sentences

Analysis tools

1 – Variability

Variability at the leaves (per tree)

Variability at the leaves ~ root length

Variability ~ depth (per tree)

Variability ~ depth (all trees)

Analysis tools

2 – Transformation rates

Transformation rate ~ depth (per length)

Length ~ depth

Transformation rate ~ depth

Analysis tools

2b – Transformation rates per tree

Cumulated transformation ~ depth (per tree)

Transformation rate ~ depth (per tree)

Analysis tools

3 – Transmissibility

Transmissibility ~ depth (all trees)

Transmissibility ~ depth (per tree)

Transmissibility ~ depth (per length)

Caveats

  • 22,4% spam
  • Reading time decided by the subjects
  • Distance has some problems

Will you investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

Will you investigate the gravest crimes of the bush administration

Don't forget to leave the door open when you leave the office

d = 1

d = 1

Will you research the worst problems of the Bush mandate, like its surveillance?

d = 1

1. Epidemiology of Representations

2. Citations in the blogosphere

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

4. Limits of the approach

Ingold (2001), From the transmission of representations to the education of attention

neo-darwinian synthesis

representational cognitive sciences

culture theory

specification | realisation

FR

EN

ES

 developmental biology, evo-devo

4Es

"savoir pratique"

biology

psychology

social

or, "Ingold on Sperber"

The problem of interpretation

Still from Ingold, 2001

Read

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Sperber, 1996

Ingold, 2001

mais être moche c'est quand même la base ahah

(twitter.com/raaannnia/status/585130263606390785)

Obama, 4/11/2008

Because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America

Surfaced by online experiments

or, "Can we interpret on the Web?"

Wittgenstein (1953), Philosophical Investigations

Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cheng, Kleinberg, Lee (2012): You had me at hello: How phrasing affects memorability

Cuffari, Di Paolo, De Jaegher (2014): From participatory sense-making to language: there and back again

Wrapping up

1. Epidemiology of Representations

4. Limits of the approach

3. Short sentences in a web experiment

2. Citations in the blogosphere

Developed, but needs more experiments to fuel counterfactual discussion.

Uncovers robust patterns compatible with biased convergence on some dimensions.

Indicates transmissibility and variability rather than convergence.

(Non-formal) interpretation and semantics is a mostly unsolved problem.

Thanks

questions & discussion

 

making possible

 

direction

You!

 

Joël Fagot & Nicolas Claidière

 

Camille Roth & Jean-Pierre Nadal